[Diabetes-talk] favorite cookbooks

[Julie Kline]

Hi all,

 

I wanted to respond to Chanelle's question about some favorite cookbooks.
Here are some I like.  Most of these I got from bookshare, and a couple from
iBooks.

 

David Zinczenko & Matt Goulding do a series of books called Eat This Not
That.  The idea is to try and swap out higher calorie items for lower
calorie items that still taste good.  What I like about the books is that
they don't just take things away telling you what not to eat, but suggest
things that you can replace those items with so you're not stuck asking, ok,
what do I do now?  I don't plan to ever get slim and toned and stuff like
that.  I've been overweight practically all my life since about 10 or 11
years old, and just realize the skinny minny thing isn't going to happen.
But anyway, some of the swaps they suggest have worked out well for us (us
being my husband and myself).

 

Another set of books I really like (also on bookshare) is the Bob Green
series: Living your Best Life.  He has a book geared toward managing
diabetes, and I really like this book because he breaks things down for you
step by step and explains why things happen as they happen.  He covers food,
nutrition labels, medicine, night cravings, anything you could want.
Unfortunately I have had some trouble accessing his website because they
want you to create an account, but I really like the books.  Again, I didn't
take everything, but used some of his suggestions and found that they have
worked for me and sorry to say, I learned more about my medicines reading
that book than the information I have gotten from my doctor.

 

The Biggest Loser has books on bookshare and at the beginning of one I have,
they break things down too and tell you how to measure things out, what a
serving should look like, etc.  This was ok, but I didn't take much from the
meals out of it because the cooking supplies they use are more than what we
have, or lack of space to store a bunch of cooking equipment.

 

If you're like me, I tend to try and gravitate towards things that don't
take forever to cook.  The less prep time and fewer ingredients, the better.
My husband and I both work full time and I'm in a really high stress job, so
I don't want to spend a long time making a meal.  I want things with common
ingredients, I don't want something that I have to buy an ingredient from
the store that I'm only going to use once, and probably never again.  The
less work and ingredients it takes to put together, the better I like making
it and will be more likely to use the recipe.  This has drawn some criticism
from past voc rehab teachers who say I'm lazy, but telling them they can
come over and do my cooking for me any time they want to, well, that usually
shuts their noise off.  Two books I have liked are the diabetic 4 ingredient
cookbook and some separate books by Robin Webb.  Sorry I don't remember the
Robin Webb titles but one deals with kitchen organization a lot and that's
the one I had.

 

In bookshare and the iBooks, there is a series of books called hungry girl
and they have some neat recipe ideas in there too, along with a supermarket
book that covers a lot of material.  It's not geared specifically for people
with diabetes, but I like the book anyway.  The website is a pain to access
though.

 

Weight Watchers also has a new book they have come out with for people with
diabetes but about the only thing I know of that one is that it's marketed
to seniors.  I'm not sure why they did it that way since younger people end
up with diabetes too, but it is.  I Don't know a thing about the book yet
though because I just read the sample, so I can't say either way.

 

Hopefully this should give some ideas for people who want them.  In the past
before I switched to someplace else, I had gotten slapped around by a
dietician.  I was newly diagnosed at the time and after telling me a bunch
of stuff not to eat anymore, in frustration I finally asked her, ok, then
you tell me what can I Eat?  She was saying that it wasn't her
responsibility to come up with a menu for me; I'd have to come up with what
I like and what I don't like and figure it out for myself.  So, these books
and another more receptive person have given me some new ideas to try.

 

I hope these ideas help and people don't have to go through what I did.

 

Julie